Amongst the Stars
by indogma
Summary: In a far off galaxy, the Federation is falling into civil war thanks to the REBELS, and one lone ship contains all the information to tip the balance of the war in one side's favor. This is the story of the Kestrel ship Good Tidings.
1. Good Tidings

**FTL: Faster Then Light**

**Amongst the Stars **

**A FanFict based off of the Indy game: FTL**

**By Indogma. **

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan based story. The contents of the story are owned by Subset Games. In no way do the views shown reflect the views of Subset Games. Please support the official release. **

The sound of war was traveling through space. The sound of lasers powering up, missiles clicking into their launcher and the hum of a beam charging, all of theses seemed to accompany the sound of a lone sentence that passed through the galaxy: "President Milton was dead."

Presently, the Federation was the verge of civil war as it was. The major two parties of the Federation's Parliament were on the verge of breaking towards each other. Only the Adam Milton was strong enough to help both parties seek peace. Now it was two late, Milton had been found dead in his chambers a week ago, he had died from the stress of his job which had weakened his heart. And now, what would happen was up in the air. Who would lead?

But the question was not answered. One of the two parties the Republic Entrepreneurs Behind Equal Laboring Services, or the REBELS decided to take the initiative. Without notice their army allies raided a Federation ship depot and captured more then a hundred ships for their cause. Now the Federalist party tried to stop them by arresting their figure head, General Braken, but instead the REBELS acted first and arrested most of the parliament and now held them in prison.

The point of words is long past now: now only conflict will end this. Between the Federation and the REBELS.

-FTL: Amongst the Stars-

Prologue

Harris Breg moved his collar away from his neck, letting some air into his uniform. He then grunted annoyed, he hated the Federation's formal uniform. It was heavy, itch and uncomfortable, and the longer he stayed in it the more he sweated. As he walked up the hallway to the Admiral's office, he sighed softly and kept walking. He had expected this. And in short he was happy the day had come.

Promotion. That was the word that was on his mind right now. He had been a captain for the Federation for about twenty years now and was in the peers of his group that were looked at for promotion. And with the new conflict, half of the fleet's men and officers had left the Federation, leaving plenty of open vacancies for seasoned officers like him. That had to be the reason why the Admiral was calling him.

Arriving at the end of the hallway, Harris touched the button of the side of the door and then the stainless steel doors opened to reveal a lobby with a young women sitting behind a screen pressing keys, she was the Admiral's secretary. She saw Harris and asked, "Hello sir. May I help you?" "Captain Harris Breg, here to see Admiral Gregson." The woman nodded and typed away again at her monitor. She them motioned him to take a seat on one of the chairs to wait for a reply, and Harris sat quietly. The room was quiet, the only noise that seemed to break the aura of silence was the woman's typing on the monitor.

After a minute of nothing, the secretary turned and looked at the captain. He was tall, thin, and his face showed many years in the service of the Federation. He had a touch of grey on the sides of his head, but the lady could tell he was barely 45 years old. Then a message appeared on her screen, "Send him in." "The Admiral will see you now," she said. Harris then stood up and walked passed the lady and entered into the Admiral's office.

Admiral of the Fleet Paul Chen Gregson stood with his back to the Captain, staring out at the window in to the wilderness of the planet of Lewvin. Harris, unsure of whether or not the Admiral knew he was there, so he said, "You sent for me, sir?" The Admiral responded, "Yes I did Breg. Take a seat," said the Admiral not turning around. The captain sat in a seat in front of the desk, and did not say anything else. For what seemed like ages either one stirred from their silence.

Then the Admiral broke the tranquility and turned to sit back into his chair. "I suppose you are here under the impression of promotion." "Yes sir," said Harris. The Admiral smiled, he always knew Harris to be blunt and brutally honest. Gregson then closed his eyes and sighed, "Well I am afraid that is not why I called you here. The board has denied your promotion." Harris then inhaled deeply and said, "Why? Why would they deny my promotion to rear Admiral?" "I do not know the specifics Breg. But I believe the reason was to give you one final assignment before you are promoted." "And what would that be?"

The Admiral then grabbed a file from his desk and handed it to the Captain. "The board decided not to promote you until you complete one more mission. And this it the mission. We are calling it Operation: Massager's Satchel."

"What is the just of the mission," asked Harris taking the file.

"You will be carrying a hard drive with all of the info that we have learned form the rebel fleet to the egg heads at Dexter Prime, were they will look for a weakness in the REBEL fleet." "I'm to carry information?" Asked Harris, almost insulted. "It is vital importance, Captain Breg. This information could be the thing that ends the entire war." The Admiral then added, "I recommended you for this mission because you are a reliable officer. We need someone who can get it done."

Harris sighed deeply. It seemed like he was given the mission with no alternative. "What is my ship? A Federation Cruiser?"

The Admiral shook his head, "Normally we would assign the best ship for the task. But the rebel fleet is closing quickly, and we need all the fire power here. So we will be giving you an alternative ship."

"A relic," countered Breg.

"Not as old as you think, you remember the class of ship called the Kestrel?" Breg nodded, "yes. They decommissioned form service a few years ago." "Well they have been updated. Yours is called the _Good Tidings._"

Harris bit is lip with anger, but then he sighed his anger out with frustration. "When do I leave sir?"

"At 16:00. About six hours from now." Harris nodded, "And the crew? Who do I have with me?"

"Apart from you? Two others will be joining you." "Just two?!" Asked the captain. The Admiral nodded, understand why the captain would outburst. "We are short on man power at the moment. We could only spare a green lieutenant fresh from academy and a service man." "You do realize that it is standard to have four people on every vessel right. Only the Engi are the ones to use drones for everything else."

"As I said, captain. We are short on man power." The captain then sighed and opened the file for the first time and read the mission briefing, when something cause his eye, the path they were to take. It was through the uncharted parts of the space, outside the Federation's boundaries. The other path would require only a few jumps to Dexter Prime, but the other would take weeks.

"Why am I to take this path to Dexter Prime?"

"Because the Rebels have heavy patrols all along the path, but not along the way we entailed in the briefing. It's the safest way, believe me."

The Admiral then stood up and returned to his spot, and said, "I cannot stress the importance of his mission Breg. I have done everything I can for you to prepare you to succeed. Your ship is armed with what we could spare. You will have to buy, beg, borrow or steal everything else you need."

The captain then stood and sighed, "I know Gregson. You have been good to me. Will that be all?"

"Yes, report to your ship, and do prelaunch checks." The captain then clicked his heels to salute the Admiral. Then he turned to leave, but the Admiral stopped him, "Harris," he then turned and saw the Admiral looking over his shoulder and smiling, "Good luck…" The Captain nodded, and left though the door. The Admiral then turned and looked below at the ships that were being serviced by maintenance teams. "For all of our sakes, you are going to need it."

The Admiral knew that the ships below would not be able to stand up against the incoming attack, and would be cut to pieces in an instant. If Harris had stayed, he would have also been killed instantly. He was sending him on this to protect him, but he would never admit it.

Meanwhile Harris after leaving the Admiral's lobby stopped at a message post and ordered his belongings to be sent to his ship, _Good Tidings. _As soon as that was taken care of he then stormed to his ship, unbuttoning a few from his uniform to help his body cool. Despite having have command he was not happy about his given task. He felt cheated, although he was one of the youngest on his rank he also was one of the captains with the longest service time. He shook his head in anger: it was not fair.

Arriving at the _Good Tidings, _Harris was not impressed with what he saw. From what he could see the mechanics did their best to try and bring the ship as up to date as they could in a short amount of time. "Dammit," said the captain to himself.

"Are you captain Breg?" Came a voice to the side of him. Harris looked and saw a man with oil stains on his skin wearing a baseball cap to the side of him.

"I'm Lee, I worked on your ship for ya!" He smiled proudly.

"Good for you," said Harris, unimpressed. "Could you show me the specs of the ship?"

"Sure thing!" Lee then handed Harris a holograph board and a model of the ship appeared, with it's energy usage and stats. "What the hell?" Asked Harris. "Can you see that there is not enough power to run all of the systems!"

"We did the best that we could with the time that we had, sir!" Explained Lee. "It had half that power when we first got it." "What are the systems?" Asked the captain, "Level one shields, sir. Basic subsystems, med bay and oxygen along with level two engines and boosters. But it has enough juice in her to power both her weapons at the same time." "Which are?" "An Artemus missile launcher and a Burst Laser Mark II." Harris sighed to himself, it was some good news. At least they had decent weapons.

"Very well," said Harris handing back the pad back to Lee. "When the bags arrive or the one of the crew, send them to my quarters." "You got it boss!" Said Lee smiling.

The next couple of hours Harris spent looking over the ship and the systems. Despite his reservations, Harris could tell the ship was ready, and quite durable. Very few flaws in the systems. As he was checking out the engines opened and a man walked in holding a service man's bag under his arm. When he saw Harris he said, "Pardon me, man. But I think you have the wrong ship." He said with a smug smile. Harris had taken off his uniform, and donned on a green t-shirt.

Harris then corrected the man, "I have the right ship, serviceman. I'm Captain Harris Breg. I know I am in the right place."

The man then dropped his bag and saluted, "Sir! I meant no disrespect!"

"Never mind that." Harris then examined the serviceman. He could tell he was green, a fresh recruit. He had saggy red hair and a soul patch under his lips. "Name and rank," order Harris. "Sir, Serviceman Walker Bere! Third Serviceman, Sir." The lowest rank, Harris sighed, he knew it.

"At easy, Bere." The man then relaxed, and Harris continued, "I do not believe in formality in everything we do ok? Rank and saluting take time and I really do not see the point. Call me Harris and I will call you Walker. As long as you do your job, and do it well, we will get along just fine. Got it?" "Yes sir!" "What are your perquisites?"

Walker gave a confused looked, "What are you good at? Weapons? Shields? Engineering? Piloting?" "Uh, sir I join a mere few months ago. This is the first action I have ever seen in any ship." "I see," sighed Harris. He then gave up hope that Walker would have a silver lining about him. "Go step up your quarters. We depart in three hours ok?" The man nodded, "Yes sir." Grabbing his bag, Walker then ran passed Harris and into the ship.

After an hour, Harris's belongings had arrived and Lee brought them on to the ship and to Harris's quarters. While unpacking his items the door opened and a young woman, not older then twenty-five, with brown standard female military haircut walked into the room, looked at Harris and saluted him.

"Sir! Evera Salina Quenant. Second Lieutenant reporting for duty sir!" Harris paused for a second, but continued to unpack not addressing the lieutenant. After a minute of setting stuff into it place he notice that the girl was still in the attention stance.

"You can at ease, Lieutenant." The girl then stepped into the "at ease" stance. Harris sighed, trained to the order, that is what the space academy did. "So you are my lieutenant? Is that correct?"

She nodded, "Yes sir, I came directly here from the academy." She then passed on a file to Harris and said, "Here is my file sir. You will find it up to date." Harris took it and leaned on his desk and read the file, it was the girl's entire academy transcript. From her grades all the way from when see started. Looking over then Harris saw a pattern: they were all top marks. He looked at her and smiled, she was the one good news he had all day. She was qualified. But he looked deeper at the file, it turns out there was more to the file: she had chosen to go on the advance track. That meant she did not receive any specific training, so in short she was as green as the serviceman. He then sighed, "They just enjoy make my job more difficult," he said to himself.

"Alright," said Harris handing the file back to her, "As I said to the other crew member, I am not big on formality. Call me Harris, ok?" She then nodded, although she looked confused, "yes sir." "Settle yourself in and we will meet at the bridge thirty minutes before take off. Understand?"

The girl nodded and saluted, "Yes sir!" And she then quickly left the room. When she was gone, Harris shook his head gravely. He had an eager to please lieutenant and a serviceman who seemed to be along for the ride. This mission could not get any worse.

He then took out a photo from his luggage, and placed it on the desk. It had a golden frame and on the top it had a name engraved on the frame: "Chelsy." In the frame was the picture of a beautiful woman with bright blonde hair, and a bight smile on her face. "Soon," he whispered.

When everything was triple checked, and the time was thirty minutes before take off, two of them met in the bridge finding the third captain already in the pilot's seat. As they crammed into the bridge, Harris then turned is chair and looked at them unimpressed. "First I want to reintroduce myself, my name is captain Harris Breg. And what I say goes on this ship. Now as I told you: I am not big on formalities just call me Harris and I will call you what you like got it?" The two of them nodded. "Now," continued Harris, "this ship is undermanned as it is. That means we all will be doing more then our share of work. So we all will be everything. Got it?" "Yes, sir," They both replied. "Good, now weapons come first. Does anyone have **any** experience in the field of weapons?"

Walker then raised his hand sheepishly, "I fired a gun back at home once sir." "Good enough, you will be in charge of the armory." He then looked at the lieutenant and asked, "Which would you prefer? Engines or Shield?" "Sir," replied the girl robotically, "Shields have more value then engines in a fight, according to out simulations back at the academy." "Shields it is then." The Harris sighed, "I do not expect you two to be good at what you are assigned to yet, but with time I will train as best that I can."

"Beg pardon, sir," asked the lieutenant, "But what is our mission exactly?" Harris smiled, he supposed they should at least know that much. "We are to carry this." Harris then held in his hand, a disk. "This little disk contains all of the data on the rebel fleet. We are to take it to a team of scientists, were they are going to try to find a weakness in the REBEL fleet." "Courier work?" Asked Walker. "Sounds easy enough." "You'd think that, but we are not going along the federation borders, instead though the uncharted space and the fringe colonies. It is apparently safer then going along the borders."

Harris then checked his watch and ordered, "Right, to your posts. Prepare for space entry." The two crew members then went to their posts and latched themselves into their seats.

After getting the all clear to take off, the _Good Tidings, _then went onto a runway and sped off into the sky and into space. As they passed the distance where satellites orbited; a hail can from the planet, from Admiral Gregson. Harris took the call. "Harris, I wanted to wish you luck once more." "Thanks Admiral," he then frowned, "It seems like you are asking me to do the impossible. A ship that is not even fully powered, and with a crew that has no experience in space!"

"That is why we sent you, Harris. You are the only one who could lead them. You are experienced, maybe you will rub off on them." Then the Admiral said, "I best get back to work." "Right see you on the other side Admiral." And with that the call was ended.

Harris then brought his ship to the beacon and prepared to head into FTL. After warning the crew, he charged up the FTL drive; when it was full, the ship then disappeared into the blackness that was space. And in a flash of light, the ship _Good Tidings _was gone.

After they had left, from the dark side of the planet, there appeared hundreds of orange space ships. The REBEL fleet had descended on the planet Lewvin.


	2. A Bad Beginning

**FTL: Faster Then Light**

**Amongst the Stars **

**A FanFict based off of the Indy game: FTL**

**By Indogma. **

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan based story. The contents of the story are owned by Subset Games. In no way do the views shown reflect the views of Subset Games. Please support the official release. **

Captain Harris Breg has been reluctantly assigned to the Kestrel class ship called the _Good Tidings._ Despite felling that he has been undermined, he accepts the command, only to regret it. His ship is a patch up out of service ship that barely has enough power to power all of it's systems. And the crew seemed to be in no better shape then the ship, both of them new to a ship and space. One a green service man with only a month planet training under his belt and a by the book academy lieutenant who took the fast tract to space command, making her just as green as the serviceman.

With an underpowered ship, and an inexperienced crew, Harris's mission just became even more difficult. He is to deliver a disk drive that contains information about the REBEL fleet that could bring the downfall of this rebellion. But he must go though uncharted and unprotected space in order to reach his destination, Dexter Prime.

Little does Harris know, that the REBEL fleet knows of their mission, and is making every effort to stop them…

-FTL: Amongst the Stars-

Chapter 1

A Bad Start

General Braken walked casually through the office of the federalist Admiral Gregson's office. Papers and documents were scattered around the floor showing that the Admiral had to leave in a hurry.

The general sighed a sigh of contentment; he had won the first battle in this rebellion here on this planet and he expected the rest of the war to flow in the same. The Federation had lost most of its fleet when the REBELS took over a space depot and most of the finest space ships of the Federation Fleet were now under the general's command.

As he pass through the office, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror and decided fix his uniform. He was fifty years hold and his hair had almost completely turned over to white, but there were little tips of his original hair that snuck into his hair, revealing his original color to be jet black. He had a stern face, with a natural frown that seemed to pull down his mouth.

From behind him came the sound of footprints on the floor. The general turned and met eyes with the Party Leader of the Republican Entrepreneurs Behind Equal Laboring Services, Jonathan Tack, who was the General's supporter and in a way his boss.

"It is not here," Said Tack coldly to the General. The General nodded not surprised. "They must have sent it on it's way to the Federal reverse over Dexter Prime. I'm sure they be able to find our weakness there."

The General said nothing, but continued to stare out the window. "Our scouts report no sign of them in the borders, which means they are traveling through the fringe worlds."

"How can we find them their?" Asked Tack.

The General then turned from his window and said, "We have bases out there in the fringe. As do they. But we know were they have to go, and we can prepare for them."

"It still is a lot space to cover."

"Yes it is, but I have ordered every ship to send out a priority message as soon as they locate any federation ship that they come across." He then smiled a crooked smile, "We will know were they are soon enough."

"I hope you are right, General Braken. If they do know of some sort of weakness against our ships they could very well win this entire civil war." Then his tone became dark, "both of us knew there was no turning back after we captured the parliament. We need to win, if not the civilians will have our heads." He then turned to leave saying, "if you forget that, I will be more then happy to remind you general…"

"Come on, Walker! It's not damn rocket science!" Came the voice of Captain Harris to his serviceman. Both were in the armory of the ship _Good Tidings_, Harris was going the green service man how to guide the missile into it's launcher using a mechanical arm. Harris had been force to spoon-feed the serviceman on how to load a missile after witnessing his performance first hand. After departing Lewvin and making it to the fringe worlds, the _Good Tidings _ran into a rouge AI drone in the middle of an asteroid field.

After showing it was hostel, Harris ordered Walker to prepare weapons. The serviceman then readied the weapons, but in his hurry he mixed up how must power was supposed to go to each weapon, and gave the missile launcher twice as much as it needed and the laser not enough to fully charge. In the entire battle, the _Good Tidings _able to fire once, and that was the preloaded missile. But—adding to the list of troubles Harris had— Walker proved himself to be all thumbs with the keyboard. While setting up the AI drone as the target, Walker then punched in the drone's location wrong, and the missile wound up flying off in a complete different direction.

The ship would have been in trouble if not for the asteroid field that the _Good Tidings _had entered into with the drone. While the ship had minimal shields, the drown did not and within minutes of the two entering into combat the drone was torn apart from the rocks hitting it. Leaving the _Good Tidings _the winner by default. While Walker had made several mistakes, Harris let them go giving the serviceman the benefit of the doubt. After all it was the serviceman's first glimpse of combat.

While Walker seemed to need improvement, the lieutenant seemed quite capable at the shields. In the asteroid field, she managed to maintain the shield constantly; making the damage the ship took a minimal. Lt. Quenant was a sort of blessing to the ship.

After jumping out of the asteroid field, the ship accidently came across an amateur pirate leisurely flying about looking for a ship to attack. As they charged their weapons to prepare to fight, Harris kept a close eye on the weapons, making sure that everything went smoothly. This time the right about to power went to each of the weapons, and both charged up nicely. But after the first missile had been fired, Walker had trouble manning the controls to reload the missile. The battle would have gone poorly for the _Good Tidings_ if the burst laser were not operating.

When the Pirate ship was destroyed, Harris then took it upon himself to teach Walker how to reload the missile launcher. When he started training Walker, he had no idea as to how much frustration the young man was about to give him. Harris was even tempted to abandon teaching Walker all together and letting the automated controls take over for him. While slow, they could guarantee a missile would get into the launcher, provided the power was not cut to the armory for whatever reason.

"I'm trying sir!" Protested Walker, fumbling over the controls. "It doesn't like me!"

"Maybe it has a good reason," replied Harris, "I am starting to see many reasons why I might not!"

Walker then glanced at the captain spitefully, and then returned his attention to the loading bay screen. As the man looked at the controls, it made him feel like he was playing a claw game at an arcade, except if he dropped the missile, it was more than a quarter that he had lost. Each missile cost about a few years of service pay for him. After a minute of slowly adjusting the handles, Walker then guided the missile into the launcher safely, but it took him twice as long as the automated computer would have taken. Harris sighed to himself; it will have to do for know.

After leaving Walker in the armory, Harris then walked through the other stations to the cockpit, were he left the Lt. in charge of collecting scrap from the rebel fighter.

"How are things here?" Asked the captain.

Evera looked at Harris frustrated at her task and said formally, "Sir I do not see the need to gather scrap from the enemies ships. We have plenty of money, so why collect this for payment?"

"These are the fringe planets Lt. I take it this is your first time out in the fringe? Well, it is my third, and let me tell you, out here they have now real love for the federation. There are the occasional colonized planets that are still very loyal to the federation but those are very rare to find. And need I remind you Lt. that we are in the middle of the civil war? People are bound to doubt our currency entirely because they are unsure of which side will win." Harris then looked out into space and said firmly, "scrap is the only currency our here. And with what we might need in the near future, we will need everything we can afford."

He then turned back to the Lt., "understand?" The Lt. nodded slowly, still not happy about it, but understood the captain's point of view. "Good." Harris said.

He then yawned, "I will be in my quarters taking a nap, when you are finished with the scrap collecting, wake me and we will carry on." Harris turned and left the young girl alone at the helm of the ship.

After collecting the scrap from the destroyed ship, Harris then resumed piloting the _Good Tidings_. After another jump to an unoccupied part of space, Evera came through the door and saluted Harris. "Sir I wish to file a report!"

Harris sighed to himself it wasn't even after the first system jump, and already she was being a nuisance for him. "Against who?" As if he needed to ask.

"Serviceman Walker, sir. He has smuggled on a contraband substance onto the ship!"

"What sort of substance?" Asked Harris, hoping it was not drugs.

Evera then pulled a chocolate bar from her pocket and showed it to the captain. "These sir, Cacao Chocolate Bars. These are prohibited under the Untied Space Laws Act. I request that Walker be put on report."

Harris brought his palm to his head and messaged away a headache he could feel coming on him. He then stood up from the helm chair and looked out into space, in thought; trying to think of a way he could word what he was about to say carefully as to ensure that he would not have to deal with this every day.

"Lieutenant," started Harris, "What is the point of putting a person on report?" "To have dispensary action done against whomever violates USLA," replied Evera robotically. "That is what they tell you at the academy, but what a report really is meant to do is set an example to the rest of the crew. To ensure that a captains order is followed when he wills it." He turned and looked at her, "Makes sense?"

The Lt. shrugged not really sure of the point he was trying to make, "I-I believe so sir…"

Then Harris took the chocolate bar and held it in his hands, "Now think about how silly this sounds: you are about to put the only serviceman we have on this ship on report, for smuggling chocolate bars." Harris smiled to himself, he never really expected to be defending Walker, "Add who would this punishment service an example to? The rest of the crew being me and yourself, and I certainly don't need to flaunt my own power around to make myself feel good."

"But, sir!" Protested Evera, "USLA is very clear—" "Out in space, lieutenant nothing is in black and white." He then sighed, "The longer you have been in command the more you see that to be truer." He then looked the young woman in the eye and said, "And I hope for your sake you learn to take that rod out of your ass, and bend a little to the rules. If not, this mission will not be enjoyable for any of us."

The lieutenant exhaled upset, and saluted the captain, turned and started to leave. "Evera!" Harris said calling after her. The Lt. stopped and glanced over her shoulder at the captain. "I will talk to him about it," he said trying giving her some gratification to her request. The lieutenant's expression did not change and she continued though the door and on her way.

As the time in the _Good Tidings_ passed and the ship made it's way to another empty location in space, Captain Harris decided to pay Walker a visit. As soon as he opened the doors to the armory, Walker noticed the Captain walking in and started to tense.

"Sir," said Walker saluting his captain. Harris casually saluted back and said, "At ease, Walker. This isn't about the weapons." He pulled out the chocolate bar that the lieutenant had and tossed it to the serviceman saying, "The lieutenant wanted me to put you on report because you smuggled some of these onboard."

"Sir," began Walker nervously, "I am so sorry. I had now idea I could get in trouble—"

"Who said you were in trouble?" Asked the captain. Harris then smiled, "I'm just telling you if you want to have them on board, just eat them when the lieutenant is not around and make sure that the wrappers get properly disposed of, and I won't have a problem with you eating them. Deal?" Walker nodded quickly, excited at the idea of not getting in trouble. "Good," smiled Harris, this was the first time he spoke to Walker that did not make him annoyed.

Walker then looked at the bar and chuckled slightly, "You know I offered her this bar to help get on her good side. I never expect that she would use it against me." Harris shrugged, "She's had the rules banged in her head from the academy, so it only makes sense that would be expected to follow every one."

"Are all the academy officers like that, sir?" Asked Walker.

Harris shook his head, "Most of them aren't as bad. Only the officers that get the top marks are the ones who follow the rules to a t, making sure they remain of the instructors' good side. While it makes then good officers in theory, it ill prepares them for real space, were rules have to be bent to maintain order." Walker became worried, but Harris reassured him. "Don't worry, I'll make sure you are not punished for a small infraction of the rules." He then smiled, "like having chocolate bars."

Walker smiled back, happy to here that his captain had his back on this ship. Walker then chuckled, "You know, I always thought you hated me sir."

"I don't hate you Walker. I find you annoying because you are still very green, and almost need to be spoon fed everything." Harris saw that his words seemed to hurt the serviceman. "But that will change with time," he said cheering him up, "we all are green and some point in our life."

"Thank you sir," grim Walker weakly. He then sighed, "Sir I feel a should apologize for being so clumsy, I never signed up for this mission, and I feel I am just causing more damage then I am worth."

Harris laughed a little. "You want to know something Walker? I never wanted this mission either, I expected to be an admiral and leading groups of ships, not a small outdate ship with only two other crewmembers. But we go where we are told to go and do what they tell us to do. It is apart of the life serving in a space ship. And there is nothing you can do about it." Harris then began to leave the armory, ending on, "All we can do is our best and hope to get recognized."

Walker watched his captain leave the armory, and the doors close behind him. The serviceman looked at the chocolate bar, feeling his stomach grumble, Walker broke open the chocolate bar and took a bite from the rich candy. He then smiled to himself, the captain was not as mean as he first thought.

"APROACHING EXIT BEACON." Came the automated voice of the ship's AI. Harris then slowed the ship from its Faster then Light jump, and felt the sudden release of pressure from the rushing of the drive forcing the ship forward at an unnatural speed. As they dropped out of the warp, Harris let a sigh of relief even over thirty years as a spaceman, he never got over the feeling of jumping from one system to another. It always knocked the wind out of him.

As the ship began to slow to a low speed, one of the scanners detected a ship that seemed to be puppy guarding the exit beacon. Harris shook his head in thought: he didn't like it. The ship seemed to be ominous towards them.

He then decided it was batter safe then sorry, and reached over to open a channel throughout the entire ship: "Listen up. We got an unknown vessel that is hugging the exit beacon tightly. I want you two on your toes. Walker, get the weapons ready, but do not turn them out just yet. I want to know what they intend to do, and there is now reason the scare them. Quenant, I want the shield up and ready. If they attack first I want to be sure we can fire back at least. Everyone understand?"

"Yes sir!" replied the lieutenant. "You got it captain, if they fire I'll be ready to kick them in the ass!" Came Walker's enthused reply. Harris smiled to himself, it seemed like his opening up a little to the serviceman made Walker eager to please him.

"You can tone down the enthusiasm, Walker. I just need you to man the weapons, not make threats that they cannot hear anyway." Replied Harris.

"Oh, yes sir. Sorry, sir." Came Walker's embarrassed response.

Harris returned his attention to the controls and steadily guided the ship towards the exit beacon. The other ship seemed to notice the _Good Tidings_, and started to make a course towards them. As they approach half the distance from where they started from, Harris attempted to hail the ship.

"This is First Captain Harris Breg of the Federation ship _Good Tidings._ What ship are you?" The other ship gave no reply, which worried Harris. He then repeated, "This is the _Good Tidings,_ of the Federation! Please respond!" Again no answer from the other ship, by know the two ships were within firing range, forcing Harris to threaten: "If you do not reply and cool down your engines we will assume intend harm, and we will attack." But still the ship gave no reply.

"Walker!" Ordered Harris to the armory, "Power the weapons!" "Yes sir!" Came Walker's reply.

"ALERT: INCOMING PROJECTITLE." Harris look up at the window and saw the ship launching a missile at the _Good Tidings_.

"Oh, Shi— Brace for impact!" Harris shouted. Grabbing the yoke of the ship he then pull it up to have the ship turn sharply up. But it was too late, the missile was already locked on. After a quiet second of nothing, there was a loud explosion followed by the ship rattling.

"Armory's hit!" Shouted Walker over the communicate. Harris looked at the ship's status chart, and saw that he was correct. "Power supply has been diminished! Only the missile launcher is active! I will try to get it launched!"

"Negative, Walker! You repair the armory and get it working! Let the auto reload system worry about that!" "Yes-yes sir…" replied Walker, sounding disappointed.

Then the ship finally returned Harris's hails: "This is the REBEL Assault Ship _Show Stopper,_ power down your weapons and prepare to be searched. If you surrender the data now, we will spare your lives." Harris exclaimed slightly, how did they know about the data so soon? "We have captured the plant of Lewvin, and your entire fleet there was defeated. The federation is falling. Surrender now, this is your final warning."

Without waiting a beat Harris hailed the REBEL ship and answered back: "Not happening, you traitors!"

"ALERT, INCOMING PROJECTILES." Came the voice of the ship's AI. Harris looked to see the ship also have a burst laser, firing three beams of energy towards the ship. They moved quicker then the missile, and Harris had no time to warn the crew and the lasers hit the _Good Tidings, _making the ship rock again_._

The first laser hit the ship's shields, causing the shields to temporarily go down for a second or two. All the time needed for the other two to make direct hits against _Good Tidings._ One of the beam hit the sensors room, causing the systems to overload and the main lights of the ship to go out, and the other hit the neighboring room were the door controls were. With that attack the _Good Tidings _blind and unable to control their doors.

As the emergency red lights lit up, Harris shouted over the intercom: "Crew! Status report!" "Repairs halfway done! Missile's a few second away from being ready!" "Shields are back online!" Came Lt. Quenant from the shield generator room, (SGR). Then there came the sound of a light **beep **from the master control panel in the bridge. The missile was ready. "Missile's ready sir!" Came Walker's pressed voice. Harris the took control of the missile and aimed it for the other ship's armory. "Firing missile!" Harris shouted to the rest of the crew, and he pressed button to launch the missile.

The _Good Tidings_ flinched back as the missile sprung from it's launcher and went flying towards the enemy. Harris watch the bright tail of the missile, and watch it pass directly through the other ship's shield and hit the ship's hull and struck the armory, damaging it. Harris could clearly see the ships' burst laser power down proof that the missile had done some damage to the armory's power supply. Now the ship was in a similar situation as the _Good Tidings. _

Harris then turned the ship to the left and the other ship followed suit, making the two ships orbit each other.

"Sir, Armory fully repaired! Powering up the burst laser now!" Came Walker's voice over to internship communicator. "Good job Walker," replied Harris.

For the next few seconds, there was a uneasy silence that had taken over the ship while they waited for their weapons to charge. Harris was ready, he had taken energy from the med-bay and placed towards the engine boosters, hopefully they could avoid another attack from the ship.

"ALERT, INCOMING PROJECTILE." Came the AI warning again. Harris looked out the reinforced window and saw another incoming missile. He then turned the ships yoke way up and the to left. Harris hoped he could maneuver the ship away fro the missile's path. But the sound of the missile impacting the ship ruined Harris's hope.

After the rocking stopped, Harris looked over at the systems, the med bay was hit, but there was no power there and no present need for it. He was grateful for the fact that the important systems were spared.

"WARING:" came the ship's computer, "HULL INTERGRITY AT 50%"

Harris then swung his head at the nearby terminal that showed the ships stats, he had completely forgotten that his ship was damaged from the fight with the AI in asteroid field and from the pirate ship. "Dammit," Harris said under his breath. He clenched his teeth as he ran through the options he could do.

If he continued the fight the ship could take a massive damage, or even be destroyed; while the fighter was not a quarter damaged. Then there was the option of retreating and jumping through the beacon. It would insure minimal damage and would help the ship's chances to survive this seeming impossible mission.

Harris then shook his head defeated and cast his voice over the ship, "Crew prepare for FTL jump! We are disengaging!"

"But sir!" Protested the lieutenant.

"This is no time debate lieutenant! Were abandoning the fight! And that is an order!"

"Yes sir," said the lieutenant reluctantly.

Harris then moved the ship towards a course for the beacon at full speed.

"Missile's ready captain!" Reported Walker.

Harris then aimed the missile at the engines of the enemy ship. The missile took off from the Kestrel ship and hit the _Show Stopper _where the engine room was believed to be. After the direct it, the REBEL ship's engines faded in power, showing that they were damaged but not completely destroyed.

Harris then focused his attention at the beacon and judged within the next minute or two they would be in jumping distance of the beacon. Harris did not know what other beacons were connected to this one, but when they got within the range of the beacon, they would know.

But the ship's AI broke Harris's concentration again. "ALERT: INCOMING PROJECTILE." Harris was impressed on how fast the missiles of the enemy ship were being loaded, they must have a seasoned gunner.

"Sir!" Came Walker's voice over his personal intercom, "Burst Laser ready to—" then the missile hit the ship, making it rock again and cut off Walker.

"Walker! What happened?!"

For a moment there was no answer from the armory. The over the ship intercom there came a weak reply, "Armories been hit again, sir. Burst laser is down and a fire has broken out."

"Walker, are you alright?"

"A little woozy from the hit, but I am fine. I am going to try to put out this fire."

"Walker, don't try to be a damn hero. Lt. Quenart! Go assist him!"

"I can… handle it… sir." Walker said trying to sound strong.

"Go lieutenant!" Order Harris ignoring Walker. "The shields will be fine on their own!"

"Yes sir!" Said Evera.

Harris returned his gaze to the space in front of him. The beacon was closer now, but still out of range to trigger the FTL drive. The enemy ship was now square with the _Good Tidings _left broadside. Harris was not expecting an attack from the ship, since the first missile they launched hit the ship's weapon system.

"Sir," came the lieutenant's stressed voice, "The doors are sealed shut! The magnetic locks are activated and I cannot open them manually!"

"Try forcing them open! If that fire reached the engines or the oxygen system we are in trouble!"

"INCOMING TRANSMITTION:" It was a hail from the ship _Show Stopper_, "Are you running scared like the federal scum you are?" Taunted the captain of the other ship. "If you run we will follow you!"

Harris growled quietly at the captain threat, if they did follow them, the REBEL ship could easily make there mission that much harder.

Then there came a small **beep **followed by a weaken Walker saying, "Artimus Missile ready… sir."

"Thank you Walker," replied Harris softly. Harris then targeted the missile for the engine, hoping to take out the remaining systems that were functioning in the engine room. From what he could tell, they other ship's crew had not repaired any of the engines yet. After carefully aiming at the enemy ship, Harris then launched the missile.

As the missile crossed in front of the ship, Harris watched it as it flew away from the launcher and hit the _Show Stopper _right in the engine room. Now the ship's engines were completely powered down and the ship began to free float in space. Harris let a quiet cheer expel from his lips, but he knew it was only a delaying tactic. He estimated they had a few minutes before the crew fixed some of the engines, and were moving again.

"ALERT: ENTIRE ARMORY'S SYSTEMS DISABLED, PLEASE SEND REPAIR CREW TO INVESTIAGE." Harris then sighed relieved, if he had waited any longer the missile would not have the power to be launched. It mush have been because of the fire.

"Captain! I cannot open the doors to the armory!" Evera shouted over the intercom, "I need your help!"

"I'll be there in one minute!" Shouted Harris back. He needed to trigger the FTL jump before he could leave the bridge. The coordinates had to be placed manually, if he abandoned the controls now to help Evera then there is the chance that the REBEL ship could very well destroy them, and then there would be now way for the two for them to help Walker at all.

After a few seconds of gut wrenching silence for Harris in the bridge alone, the AI final report: "FTL JUMP LINK ESTABLISHED WITH EXIT BEACON. PLEASE CHOOSE DESTINATION."

On the control panel, two possible beacons showed up. One was the system of Fasy, and the other Zurt. Harris, not thinking about the destinations panicked and hurried, picked Fasy as the ship's next location. In his mind he concluded, "Anywhere is better then here!" After selecting the button for the system, the AI then said: "PREPARING FTL DRIVE, PLEASE BRACE FOR JUMP."

"Evera, Walker, prepare for jump!" Shouted Harris over the ship's intercom. A split second later, the ship then jumped into FTL. The pressure pushed Harris back deeper into his seat until the ship reached it's peak speed and the pressure slowly tapered off of Harris.

As soon as he could move, Harris ran towards the armory. As he passed through the SGR he found Lt. Quenant, still trying to force the armory's doors to open with her bear hands. "Wait a minute!" Harris yelled pulling her away from the doors. He then pointed her at a flashing rid light in the shape of an O2 over the top of the door. "The room is deoxidized! The last missile must have ripped open a breach."

The two of them then pulled out their temporary oxygen masks and put them over their mouths. "I hope Walker is ok," said Evera looking at Harris concerned.

"Hopefully he decided to get out of there, but we can't worry about that now. Our priority right now is to seal the breach. If we don't we could wind up loosing all of our weapon systems into space entirely." He looked at the lieutenant after put his mask on who nodded her head understanding. She had heard of recorded instances were an entire ship let a system room be flooded by space. And within an hour the entire room was bare of systems and parts.

Both of them walked up to the door and wedged their hands into the crack of the door. Harris looked at Evera and asked, "Ready?" She nodded. "On my single, one two, three, pull!" Together the two of them forced the crack to widen. As they did they could feel the air rush past their faces into the room, proving that there was no air in the armory.

As they forced crack of the door open to go past a foot, the door's magnetic locks were far enough away that their connection with each other was cut and the doors flew open. As the doors opened for the two of them all of the air in the room behind them started to blow into the armory.

Both looked around and saw in the floor in front of them a whole in the floor about the size of one of their foot. Harris then pointed to a square piece of metal beside a portable metal torch. "Grab that piece of scrap metal, and put it on the breach! I'll grab the heat torch!"

Within seconds, Evera had placed the metal over the hole in the floor and the air seemed to stop. Then Harris came in with the torch and fired it up. It was a high-powered heating torch that carried it's own oxygen, just in case they needed to patch something in an environment without oxygen in it. He then placed the torch on the outside of the piece of metal and lit up the flame. The bright flame fused the very edge of the metal to the floor, sealing the piece of metal to the ground and ensuring no air could escape from the ship.

After Harris traced the torch around the metal, the ship's AI reported: "HULL BREACH REPAIRED. OXYGEN RETURNING TO THE ARMORY." Harris let a sigh of relief, that was one problem solved. He then looked at the lieutenant to say she did well. But her attention was somewhere else.

Lt. Quenant seemed to be staring deeper into the armory, her eyes were full of terror and she seemed to be trembling slightly. Harris slowly turned his head to see what she was looking at: it was Walker, face down on the floor motionless.

Harris slowly walked over to him to check on him, he was less then optimistic of the youngman's fate but he still wanted to hope there was a spark of life left. He then lightly turned Walker's body over, to filch at what he saw. The fire must have reached him before it burnt out because of the lack or air. His face was covered in fresh deep burns and some of his hair and scalp were burnt too. If he was alive he would not have much to live for.

"Is-is is he dead?" Asked the lieutenant still in shock. Harris looked at her and nodded once slowly. Then as the oxygen began to flow freely in the room again, the foul smell of burnt flesh and hair began to choke the room. The lieutenant the began to gag, and pant heavily, "Oh, oh my god…" She then felt vomit come up in her throat. She then ran up and bolted out of the room, tears in her eyes and hands on her mouth.

Harris left her alone and returned to the dead servicemen. He then sighed depressed, "Dammit Walker. Just when I was starting to like you!" This was a very bad start for the _Good Tidings_ or it's mission. They were not even to the second beacon in the fringe planets, and they had already lost a man. Harris then looked at the small part of Walker's face that was not burnt, it reminded Harris that he was no more then twenty years old. To young to die, Harris thought; far too young.

He then curse louder, "Goddamn this mission!"


	3. Recovering and Remembering

**FTL: Faster Then Light**

**Amongst the Stars **

**A FanFict based off of the Indy game: FTL**

**By Indogma. **

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan based story. The contents of the story are owned by Subset Games. In no way do the views shown reflect the views of Subset Games. Please support the official release. **

The ship _Good Tidings_ has hit a more then bumpy start. After it's first major engagement, the ship is already down one crewmember and severely damaged. Now in an unknown sector, the remaining crew Captain Harris Breg and his Lieutenant, Evera Quenant, mourn the loss of their comrade and repair their ship before moving on.

-FTL: Amongst the Starts-

Chapter 2

Recovering and Remembering

General Braken stood in the middle of the bridge of the newly acquired flagship: _The Jupiter._ Triumphant, was the word that best described his mood today. He had just had his belongings moved into the captain's quarters, (moving the captain to one of the lower cabins), and was now in command of this giant space ship with enough fire power to destroy an entire squadron of Federalist ships.

As he stared out of the bridge's opened viewing window on the planet of Lewvin, a young officer walked up beside the General and saluted him. "Sir, we have a message from the ship, _Show Stopper,_ in the fringe."

The general turned from his window and said: "Oh? Has he found the ship carrying the data?" "He didn't say sir." Replied the officer. "He just requested to report to you first."

The General nodded, "Very well, I will receive the call here." The officer saluted the General again and left the bridge for the General. When the young man had left, Braken went to a open control panel and opened the hail from the _Show Stopper._

"Captain Troy," begun Braken, "What have you found?"

"The Federation is using a Kestrel ship, the_ Good Tidings,_ to carry the data it seems sir. We engaged the ship not more then six hours ago." "What happened?"

"We badly damaged the ship sir, lowering its armor to less then half before it jumped to another sector. It got a lucky hit on our engines and we were not able to follow it for some time. When we repaired our engines we jumped to the civilian sector of Zurt, thinking it was the place they would have picked…" He then added embarrass, "It seems we where wrong sir."

"What was the other sector?"

"Fasy sir, a pirate sector." Replied the captain.

The General nodded, understanding the reasoning why the captain would think that the ship would go to Zurt. "Did you get the captain's name?" "Yes sir. A Harris Breg." "Breg? I did not realize he was still a captain. Are you certain?"

"That is who he identified himself as, sir."

"Very well," said the General, "Keep up the search, we cannot allow that information to get to the remaining Federation fleet at Dexter Prime."

"Yes, sir. Troy out!" Said the Captain ending the hail.

General Braken turned and returned to his spot to overlook the planet. "This may get interesting…"

On board the ship, _Good Tidings,_ the two remaining crew were quiet, deadly quiet. They had been after the jettison of Walker's body from the ship. It was custom for the crew to launch their dead crew members into space to avoid air contamination, and it seemed to follow the tradition of the idea of being "buried at sea". Before they launched him from the ship, Harris said a few words, as a sort of funeral service for him and for the Lt. "I can't say I knew him that well… but from what could tell, it seemed like he would have been a fine space man one day. And maybe a good friend…"

As he looked down at the deceased crew member wrapped in a white sheet, Harris remembered swore in his mind. The young man died no more the twenty years old, his birthday was only a few days away from Harris's. They had probably had a lot more in common than that, but it was to late too compare. Walker was gone.

Harris, sighed loudly and then recited the spaceman's farewell, a line from a poem devised for the occasion of losing a member. "Now we cast you out into the empty void, leaving you to the fate that none can avoid. We your crewmates say farewell you and rest in peace, and my yours be the only death until this fighting ceases…" Together Harris and Evera walked out of on of the side cambers of the ship and through the med bay to the repaired door control. There, Harris opened the doors to vent the chamber of air, and release Walker's body into space. Soon there was a subtle sound of the air whooshing from the chamber into the black of space. As the roomed emptied Harris felt heavy with grief, but he did not show it. When all the air was gone from the room, Harris closed the door and let the air flow back into the room.

For a silent both of the ship's crew just stood staring at the panel, lost in their thoughts. Harris was the first one to break from his trance by saying, "I doubt Walker would want us to just stand here and morn him forever. Come on, we still have repairs to complete." Evera gave a small half hearted nod. And the two of them went back to business as usual, or as close to it as Harris could reproduce.

The _Good Tidings_, was still heavy damaged from its fight. Harris and Evera only repaired the door control panel to jettison Walker into space. Harris and the Lt. decided to split the work, Evera would start on the Armory and Harris would fix the sensor station, when he was done their he would head over to the Armory and help.

After about an hour in the sensor station, Harris was able to get the sensors up. He checked the full status of the ship, and found that there was another breach on one of the side corridors leading to the engine room from the armory. He then noticed that the Armory was not showing any progress as far as repairs. Harris then opened a channel feed to the armory's camera and found it to be empty. He cycled through the feeds until he found the Lieutenant in the corridor room opposite the one that had the breach. She was sitting up against the wall with her head against her knees, crying.

Harris let a depressed sigh leave his lips. He felt sympathy for the young girl, this must have been her first death. The academy did not prepare her for that. They never did. Harris then left the sensor station and headed towards the room where the Lieutenant was.

As the doors opened to reveal the tearful young officer, the Lt. snapped her head up and Harris, fearful that she was in trouble. Quickly wiping the tears from her eyes, she got on her feet and said looking down to the floor, "I'm sorry, Captain. I'll get back to work."

"No Lieutenant, that can wait." The young lady flinched, expecting some sort of reprimand for not fixing the Armory. "Let's talk." The Lieutenant looked at Harris confused, "about what?"

"Walker," said Harris. He then stepped to the side a motioned her to the armor and pulled out two fold able chairs for both of them. When both of them were seated, the Lt. looked uncomfortably at her commanding officer. "Sir, I don't know what I can say about Walker. I barely knew him…"

"Yes," agreed Harris, "But his death is clearly affecting you." Evera looked at Harris and wiped a tear from her eye. "I'm sorry sir, I am not used to death." "I would be concerned if you were Lieutenant, nobody is ever used to death on a ship." He then smiled and admitted, "Not even me."

"Really?" Asked the Lt. Harris nodded giving Evera a relieved feeling. "Was he your first death?" Asked Harris. The Lt. nodded. "Yeah, the first one is the one that you remember the most." He then laughed, "My first was serviceman a little older then Walker. His name was called Harq. He loved to play practical jokes on the crew, setting traps around the ship to get the crew. One day he was preparing a joke on the captain, and pressed the wrong bottom and opened the air lock rather then the door. Before he could even yell, he was sucked out into space… and was gone."

"That sounds terrible," said Evera.

Harris nodded, "Yeah, but none of us at the time really thought much of it while on board. Nobody wanted to talk about it, or even mentioned his name again." Harris then stopped for a moment, lost in his memory. "Then after I transferred to a different ship, I started having nightmares. For a while I was a scared of falling asleep, and my performance suffered. But I passed it off as nerves, and tried to avoid it as saying I had a problem. Until I had heard what my former Captain did."

"What did he do?" Asked the Lt.

Harris sighed, "He had a mental breakdown and went on a rampage with a laser pistol at a large shopping center. Before the local law enforcement could shoot him down, the last words he spoke where: "I'm sorry Harq." It was then I realized what was giving me these nightmares, the serviceman Harq." "What did you do?" "I took sick leave and checked into a psych-ward in the space fleet. There I discovered I could not even say Harq's name, no matter how hard I tried. They treated me for PTSD, and I had a month of treatment to go through."

"How were you able stay in the fleet?" Asked Evera.

Harris smiled, "It was because I checked myself in on my own. Apparently I was a "role officer" because of my willingness to get help for a problem that I had. Plus I was good friends with one of the higher admirals, who put in a good word for me and allowed me to stay in the Space Fleet."

"I had no idea, you went to therapy…" said Evera amazed.

Harris smiled, "I was not that bad after awhile." He then sneered, "I mean I did find my wife there after all."

"You're married?!"

"Yep," smiled Harris, "About four years now… She was a psychiatrist at the place I visited. She's now working at a colony on one of the fringe planets." "Do you plan to see her sir?" "Hopefully," sighed Harris. "If we go past her planet…, but remember Lt. out mission comes first. Understand?"

Evera nodded, "Yes sir." Harris smiled, and looked around at the Armory still heavily damaged. "Now, Evera. We better get back to work, I don't like floating at a nearby beacon with our weapon systems offline." As both got up from their chairs, Harris added, "Lieutenant, I wan you to know, if you need to talk about something I am here. I'd rather you admit you have a problem and deal with it then bottle it up for it to come back latter. Understand." Evera gave a small nod, and smiled slightly, "Yes sir, Harris."

The captain laughed, "That is the first time you called me by my name, Evera."

She shrugged, "I thought I could loosen up a bit. And I don't see the harm of saying someone who you respect first name, instead of rank." "You're learning."

With the small intervention over, the two crewmembers got back to work on the _Good Tidings'_ repairs.

After another hour and a half, the two where able to have the ship as ready as the two of them could make it. They could not do anything about the hull itself but they could repair all of the broken systems and get the interior systems back to functioning order. When that was finished both Harris and Evera gathered in the bridge to decide on their course.

As Harris pulled up the star map, he noticed the sector was deemed a "pirate" sector. "Dammit!" Harris swore out loud. "What?" Asked Evera confused by the sudden outburst.

"I jumped us into a pirate sector!" Said Harris angrily.

"Pirates?" repeated Evera.

"Yeah, I guess I was not paying attention to which sector I could choose from… I just pick one and jumped. I was more worried about Walker and the Armor then where we were going."

Evera sighed, "So what do we do now?"

Harris looked at the star chart, from the first beacon; he could see three possible routes they could take. Over one of them was a symbol that meant an anomaly in the system. Harris pressed the region and the AI off the ship elaborated: "UNRECOGIZABLE STRUCTURE DETECTED. INCOMING PRERECORDED HAIL FROM STRUCTURE. DO YOU WISH TO ACCCEPT? Harris glanced at Evera who shrugged. He then pressed the "Accept".

PLAYING PRERECORDED HAIL. The star map then shifted to an image of a fat man with a bright yellow rubber shirt on behind a counter. (Disturbing image I know). "Hello traveler! Are you in need of repairs or supplies? Need a nice bed for a day or two? Well come no further then to Tiny's Fringe Station! Home to everything you could want or need for your journey! See you soon!" The man then wicked at the camera and the hail ended.

Evera then lowered her head from the hail and stared at Harris, her face asking: "What the hell was that?"

Harris smiled, "In the fringe there are self-made vendors, like Tiny apparently, who open shops in the deep reaches of space to help freelance travelers and large colony transport fleets and sell their goods. It is very common in the fringe." Harris smiled, "and lucky for us, we need repairs."

"You cannot be considering going sir?" Asked the Lt shocked at the captain's willingness to go to these "shady" shops. Harris looked at Evera, "We don't have much of a choice in the matter do we? We need repairs, and he says he can do them." Evera looked at Harris, every bone in her body hated the idea of going to a unlicensed shop, but her new found respect for the captain, and the state of the ship made it see the benefits of going. "Alright," she sighed, "but I do not like it."

Harris looked at her, "Neither do I but we have to go there."

As the _Good Tidings_, dropped out of FTL drive and arrived at the Space Shop, Evera came back to the bridge from the shields and together they saw the station come into view. It seemed like the station was made up of dozen pieces of material, all of different colors and metals. It seem to vibrate ominous feeling from it. "Shady…" said the Lt. out loud. "At best," added Harris.

As they approached the station, two meteors' appeared from nowhere and began to orbit the ship. "What is happing Harris?" Asked Evera.

"They're defense drones disguised as meteors, to be sure we don't do something stupid." INCOMING HAIL FROM UNKNOWN SPACE STATION. Harris accepted the hail, and the same man from the prerecorded hail appeared on the holographic screen. Evera noticed that he seemed to have gotten much bigger then before. But she could tell it was the same man, since he wore the same yellow shirt. "What's your business here, Fed!" Came his threatening voice.

"We are here seeking repairs for scrap. I was told this was the place to get it fixed at," replied Harris calmly. "And who the hell told you that?" Came the man's still angry voice. "You did, in your prerecorded hail," said Harris still calm. The large man then seemed to freeze dumbfounded my Harris's remark. Then, to surprise to Evera, he started to laugh, a deep loud laugh. "Ha, I'm starting to like ya!"

"We are in need of repairs, can you help us?" Asked Harris "Sure I can!" Said the man, "How much scrap you got?" "About forty units worth." The fat man then grunted, "That should be enough, come in to dock." And then the man cut off the hail.

Harris then turned to Evera and said, "open the weapons locker and get a laser pistol of you and me. Just because he said we can dock does not mean he will try to double cross us." Evera nodded, happy that Harris was being cautious, and went to the locker to arm herself.

After docking at the Station, Harris locked the ship's AI so Tiny could not do anything to control the ship if he decided to betray the two of them. As they walked though the final airlock into the station, a long corridor in bright red lighting greeted them. Harris and Evera looked at each other, if the outside of the station was not enough to make them feel ominous towards the station, the corridor did.

After walking down the corridor, they were finally greeted with the fat man behind the counter from the spam hail. "Welcome to my shop!" Harris looked around, it seemed like the closest thing to a cheap pawn shop he had seen in quite a long time. Harris then walked up to the fat man's counter and said, "I'm Harris Breg of the Federation." "Tiny," said the large man, introducing himself.

Tiny then opened a holograph of the _Good Tidings,_ and examined the damage. "I see your ship is in pretty rough shape, almost down to a quarter of its hull left." "Yeah, we where caught off guard." Admitted Harris. "Well, with that amount of damage I am going to need all of your scrap im payment." Harris sighed in his mind, he expected to fully repair the ship would cost a lot of scrap.

"Is their anyway I could get you to spare us some scrap, we could use the extra to pay to buy fuel and missiles." "Look man, if you want your ship completely fix then it will be 41 scrap units. If you want a partial repair job and save some scrap to save for missiles and fuel that is up to you, but it's 41 units of scrap for a complete repair." Then Tiny smiled, "Unless you have something I might want."

"Like what?" Asked Evera.

"I buy luxury goods from the Federation and sell here so that people can have a taste of home out here. That includes videos, fancy clothing—" "Chocolate bars?" Asked Harris.

Tiny laughed, "Ha, I doubt you have any! I know Fed rules, they are not allowed on board because they are like drugs to the Mantis. Even a drop of the stuff and they go mad! I doubt you would have been brave enough to bring them on board!"

Harris looked at Evera, and reached into his pocket and pulled out one of Walker's chocolate bars and put it on the counter in front of Tiny. Tiny cautiously pick up the bar, opened the wrapper, smell the bar then look a big bite from it. After a few chews, Tiny stared at Harris amazed, "How the hell did you keep these?" Harris shrugged, "through a naïve serviceman. We have three more boxes of them on board our ship. How much would you pay us for the entire lot?"

Tiny stood their crewing the chocolate bar in thought. "I'd give ya 4 fuel, 5 missile and 15 scrap off the repair job for those boxes." Harris nodded, far more then he expected.

"All right it's a deal," smiled Harris.

As soon as the deal was made, Tiny went to work. Not personally, but he had an army of repair drones that did his dirty work for him. Within two hours the _Good Tidings_ was fully repaired and stocked with more missiles and fuel. When the transaction was complete Harris and Evera, then headed back to the ship and undocked from Tiny's station.

As the station started get farther away, Harris was hailed again by Tiny. "Just thought I'd share a little friendly advice, if you are looking to avoid a fight, take the middle jump to the planet there. It's an unsettled place with not much gone for it, except for the strange creatures on the planet. Maybe you can land there and recruit one for your crew! Haha." Tiny then ended his hail with the ship.

"Can we trust him?" Asked Evera through the intercom.

"I doubt he would repair us just to send us into a trap," replied Harris. "And he would know the area better then we would after all."

The intercom then clicked as if the Lieutenant was going to respond but didn't. "Something on your mind? I'd rather you tell me then keep it to yourself."

"It's about Walker's chocolate. How could you get rid of it so fast? I mean it was not yours, sir." "Technically it was when Walked was killed. In UNLA is says once a person is deceased the captain has the right to claim any of his belongings, especially, "prohibited substances" like chocolate bars."

"Still, sir. It was not…" Her voice trailed off trying to find the least hurtful word. "Decent?" Said Harris. "Yeah…" replied the Lieutenant.

"I can understand your want to try to keep respecting Walker's belongings, but if I have to trade someone's snack's to improve the chances of this ship's surviving, I will."

"But sir," protested Evera.

"Dammit, Evera! I already lost one man, I'm trying to make sure we do not lose another!"

For a moment the ship seemed to go silent. Either one knew what to say. Evera saw what Harris was trying to do, protect her, and Harris seemed vulnerable to his second in command. "Look, Evera. Walker is dead, he won't mind if we use his belongs to improve our chances. He probably wouldn't mind it if was alive either. I can understand your concerns and they are noted. But I need to make sure we get out of this ok."

The Evera replied, "I understand sir. And… thank you, for…caring."

"It comes with the territory…" Replied Harris. "Now," said Harris charging up the FTL drive, "let's get back on course. Prepare for FTL jump."

"Yes, sir!"

When the Jump Drive was charged, Harris turned the ship towards the planet that the station owner, Tiny, suggested. They had nothing to lose by trusting him, and hopefully would gain something from the trip. That is all they could do now. Hope.


	4. Shipwrechs and Slavers

**FTL: Faster Then Light**

**Amongst the Stars **

**A FanFict based off of the Indy game: FTL**

**By Indogma. **

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan based story. The contents of the story are owned by Subset Games. In no way do the views shown reflect the views of Subset Games. Please support the official release.**

* * *

As the _Good Tidings_ licks it's wounds from it's engagement, they get some advice form a strange source. Deciding to act on it Harris steers the ship and its surviving crew member towards an uncharted planet, hoping to find some good on that planet.

-Shipwrecks and Slavers-

The empty space outside of a small planet was quite and undisturbed. The small planet, yet to be named, slowly rotated around the local nearby star. Around the planet, a duo of FTL beacons orbited the planet. While untouched by the space traveling creatures of the universe, it was visited by the first servers when they spanned across the Universe planting beacons to expand the FTL Warp guiding system.

From the far off space, on of the many simmering lights began to grow brighter and larger. Then the light grew to it's largest size and seemed to hit the beacon, and instantly disappear after reaching it. On closer inspection, the source of the light was the Kestrel class ship, the _Good Tidings._

"FTL JUMP SUCCESSFUL. NOW ARRIVING AT PLANET: UNNAMED NUMBER: 5432." Reported the ship's AI.

"It really does look like a backwater planet… doesn't it?" Said Lt Evera looking hard on at the planet.

"Backwater? Its like a lost land." Said Harris. "Untouched by any technology."

Evera sighed, "I hope that station owner was telling us the truth."

"We'll see," said Harris guiding the ship into orbit. When the ship was caught in the planet's orbit, Harris powered down the engines and turned on the ship's bio scanners on the planet. The station owner Tiny assured them that there were strangle life forms on that planet.

After about an hour of the ship scanning the planet, the AI reported, "UNKNOWN BIO SIGNS DETECTED ON PLANT'S SURFACE. SEARCH PARTY RECOMMENDED."

"Looks like he was right," said Harris.

"What are you planning to do Harris?" Asked the Lieutenant.

Harris leaned back in his chair and looked up into the ceiling in thought. The phrase that Tiny said played back in his mind on a loop, "Maybe you can land there and recruit one for your crew!" Surprising himself, he found the idea the most sensible, given the circumstances. The ship was already heavily undermanned as it was, could these creatures be intelligent enough to help them run their ship.

"Let's try to communicate with them," said Harris making up his mind.

The Lieutenant said nothing, Harris had already gone this far with Tiny's advice, so it came as no surprise he would follow it even further. She sighed in her mind, but understood the Captain's reasoning. They needed all the help they could get. "I will prepare the shuttle," she said leaving the bridge.

* * *

The ship had a single shuttle in one of the cargo bays. The little craft was barely big enough to fit five full people on it, excluding the flyer. It had no weapon capabilities and could not move very quick. That limited the uses of it down to transportation of crew from the ship to a planet or space station. When the shuttle was ready, the two crew members LOCKed (Life-support Override Control Key) the ship. Now the ship's life support systems would shutdown until they returned with the correct key code. Without that code, the ship's life support would not reactivate.

As Harris flew the shuttle down to the planet's service, the Lieutenant seat in the back of the craft, shaking with the turbulence; getting sick to her stomach. When the shuttle kissed the planet's surface, the two humans opened the door of their shuttle, with their hands on their weapons, just in case.

Once their eyes adjusted to the bright green sky the planet's sky painted. They saw that the strange creatures Tiny described surrounding them in a giant mob.

"Captain," whispered Evera worried.

"Easy, Evera…" Harris whispered back. "Keep calm… we are not here to cause trouble."

Harris slowly walked out of the shuttle and looked at the creatures. They were small, brightly colored, six legged horse like creatures. Neither Harris nor Evera had seen creatures like them. Harris sighed, he thought Tiny meant creatures that could have some work force value, but these creatures would not have much use on their ship, even if communication was established.

One of the creatures stepped forward, Harris assumed that creature was the "leader" for all of them.

"Greetings," said Harris raising his hand peacefully. Seeing his language not being understood, Harris then spoke in every other alien language that he knew. All not reaching the creature. When he had spoken every phrase he could think of, he turned back toward the Lieutenant and shrugged. Then the creature tugged on Harris uniform, getting his attention, and nudged him forward. Harris realized the creature was trying to show him something. He signaled Evera to follow him, and together the two followed the creature with the rest of the creatures close behind.

"He seems to want to show us something," whispered Harris.

"Yeah, but what?" Asked Evera. Harris just shrugged, and let the creature lead the two of them onwards.

After a quick hike on the planet, the creature lead the two of them to a the crash site of another ship. Harris recognized the designed. In was in the same shape of a box, which made a dead give away that it was an Engi ship. They were known as expert salvagers, and could make anything fly into space again.

"The Engi would have their work cut out for themselves here," thought Harris looking at the ship. The ship seemed to have been on this planet for a few years. Moss had begun to cover the sides, painting the ship in a hairy green.

Harris put his hands on his hip and sighed contently, there might be something of value on this ship. Making the whole trip to this planet potential worth it. "Evera," he ordered, "wait here and keep an eye on the ship, I will head back to the shuttle and fly it here. We can gather what we can from this ship and be on our way."

The lieutenant nodded, and stayed behind with the creatures while her captain walked back to their landing site. As she sat on a nearby rock, she watched as some of the creatures had begun to become more comfortable around her. They slowly lowered their guards and began to graze on the nearby vegetation around them. Some of the little ones began to rough house with each other, gnawing at their ears and kicking each other playfully.

* * *

After some time, Harris brought the shuttle to the crashed ship, and together the two of them opened one of the side doors, and entered into the ship. Inside, they were surprised to see dirt and water marks all around the interior of the ship. The ship's seals must have broken in the crash, making the panels that made up the ship leak water.

Going from room to room, Harris and Evera, kept their weapons ready just on case something was unfriendly in this ship. As the two of them visited the last of the rooms, they found the sensors room to be the first room that was not damaged from water in anyway. Harris examined the console of different machinery. Is was more advanced then the one they had currently on the _Good Tidings_, if they could salvage some of the devices on this ship, they could hopefully see inside their enemies' ships. A useful tool.

"Harris," said Evera from the bridge, "I found something."

Harris abandoned the Sensor room and entered the bridge with the Lieutenant. In the pilot's chair, sat a deactivated Engi. "I see you found the former captain of this ship," said Harris examining the robotic being. The Engi look completely intact, and undamaged, just unpowered. Harris then noticed why it was unpowered. On the chest of the robot, was a dark green orb. Harris had seen enough Engi's to know that it was the Engi's power source, it's dead power source.

Not much was know of the Engi, even what they consisted off, but little was know is that the Engi get their life force from the green ball in the center of the chest. It was a unlimited source of power according to the Engi, but occasionally it would overload and deactivate.

"Is that an Engi, sir?" Asked Evera. She had only seen a picture of an Engi before, they were, smaller than she envisioned them to be.

"Yes it is Lieutenant," said Harris. "A powered down one…"

"Is it dead?" She asked.

Harris shook his head, "The only real time an Engi can be killed is if their bodies are destroyed. When their cores are deactivated like this, then it just takes a small jump start, like a burst of energy to wake them up. Right now it is turned off…"

"Can we turn it back on?" Suggested Evera, "Maybe he could be of some help."

Harris nodded, Engies were the best repairers in the Universe. Having one on board would help their chances significantly, being one man down as it was. "We can try," said Harris. He grabbed on of the Engi's arms, and gave it a hard pull, only to find the Engi heavier then it looked. After three more attempts Harris realized there was no plausible way they could carry the Engi to the shuttle, they would have to improvise.

Harris and Evera ran a power cord through the busted up bridge window and moved the shuttle just outside the bridge making the cord able to reach the Engi. After that, Harris then connected the cord to the Engi, and let the electricity flow. For a second, the Engi remained motionless, with no sigh of if the charge was working. Harris and Evera looked at each other worried that this was all a waste of time.

Suddenly the green core of the Engi began to flicker and blink, first subtly at first, but then it began to grow brighter and blink more frequently. Soon the entire orb was lit and glowing brightly, and a soft electric hum soon came from inside the robotic figure, with the new found life force with in.

Slowly the head of the Engi began to rise, and a green color began to fill the eye slots on the face. When the head faced forward, the Engi slowly turned his head from one side to the other, causing a mechanic whirling sound as it turned. When the Engi saw Harris and Evera, he stopped and stared at the two of them. For another long moment, the three of them said nothing, and just stared at each other. Then the Engi concluded that the two of them had resorted him back online.

The Engi then looked down on his chest, saw the cord connected to his chest, removed it from his body, and slowly stood up. On his feet he looked at the two humans and said in an electronic voice: "Gratitude." Said the Engi.

Harris and Evera looked at each other, not used to the Engi tone of speaking. Harris then stepped forward and introduced himself, "I am captain Harris Breg of the Federation Ship the _Good Tidings._" He then gestured towards Evera, "This his my second in command, Lt. Evera Quenant."

"Greetings." Replied the Engi. "Identification number: 37658764902. For clarification. Human name equivalent to: Gage." The Engi turned and begun to explore his ship, looking at what sort damage the ship had sustained, while Harris and Evera followed close behind him.

After a good half an hour the Engi stopped in the middle of the ship's armory and said. "Ship's condition. Poor. Chance of repair success, 15.76%. Purpose alternative. Offer services and equipment from present ship to known working Federation ship."

"You would be willing to help us?" Asked Harris.

"Affirmative. Increased chances of leaving planet if offer services to Federation. Multiplied chances to 88.98%."

"Are you sure?" Asked Harris. "We are in the middle of an important mission, and might not be able to stop in your home sector to drop you off."

"Indifferent. Chances of leaving planet fall to 1.23% if left here by Federation. Current mission. Unknown yet acceptable."

Harris knew what he was trying to say, if he didn't go with them and help the Engi mu be stuck here for a long time. But either way, he was not about to let an Engi offering to join his ship get away. "All right," smiled Harris. "We will have you."

"Gratitude." Replied the Engi. "Addition assistance suggested. The ship's sensor station adequate. In addition. Salvageable material for scrap. Agreed?"

"You would be willing to give us the ship's advance sensors?" Asked Lt. Evera.

"Affirmative." Said the Engi. Harris and Evera looked at each other and smiled, their day just became better.

For the next two hours, the three of them took apart the advance sensors in the ship and placed the parts in the shuttle, when they were finished with the sensors, they began to make the trip back up to the ship in the shuttle.

* * *

After arriving back on the _Good Tidings_, Evera and Gage went straight to work in the Sensor station, up grading the sensors; while Harris went to the bridge to check on the ship. Checking the long range sensors, Harris noticed something on the long range scanners that made his heart skip a beat. A sea of red, like a wave of ugly water over the clam black universe. The REBELS were sending a fleet to search for them.

"Not just content with scouts searching for us, huh?" Said Harris under his breath.

Harris then spoke over the intercom to the two crew members, "How the upgrade going?"

"Already done, sir! Gage knew what to do and before I knew it the system was installed!" Harris smiled, he knew Engies were at machines, but this was beyond his expectations at how quick the Engi could install it. "Shall we go back down planet-side, sir, for more scrap?"

"Negative, Lieutenant. We have bigger issues. We have incoming company." "A REBEL fighter?" "A REBEL **Fleet**, lieutenant. It seems we are quite the wanted party guest." "A fleet sir?"

"Recommend powering FTL drive. Heading towards nearby sector beacon." Came Gage's robotic voice.

"Agreed," said Harris. "Prepare for FTL jump, we are getting out of here!"

"Inquisitive. What position should this one be at?"

"Which one would you prefer?" Offered Harris. "We need one in engines or one in the armory."

"Engines are higher priority than weapons in need of escape. Therefore engines are in need of operator."

"Alright, head to the engine room and prepare to jump Gage." "Understood," came the Engi's voice. Within minutes the ship was prepped for FTL jump. Moving the ship away from the planet and towards the beacon when the FTL jump drive was powered, Harris locked on to the beacon.

"PREPARING TO LEAVE PLANET: 5432. NOTICE: IN CONGRUENCE WITH THE FEDERATION CHARTER THE LAST CAPTAIN CAN NAMED AN UNNAMED PLANET. DO YOU WISH TO NAME THE PLANET? Harris stared back at the last bit of visible part of the planet. As he looked at the planet one more time, a name came up to Harris's mind. After agreeing to the suggestion, Harris then punched the name of the planet, after he was done, the AI replied, "NAME ACCEPTED: NOW DEPARTING WALKER'S PEACE."

After hearing the name Harris smiled and punched it, and the ship departed from the one planet towards another small speck in the dark surroundings.

* * *

"DROPPING OUT OF FTL JUMP." Came the AI reporting the ship's status. As the pressure from the jump suddenly lifted from Harris's body, he lurched forward as the speed of the ship dropped. After setting the ship at a slow glide, Harris turned on the newly installed short-range sensors, testing out the new equipment. The sensors themselves where designed to be able to pierce the hull of any ship and tell the crew how many men where in the other ship and where they were in the ship.

Since Gage installed the sensors, the _Good Tidings _did not have a chance to test them on a ship. The jumps from the abandoned planet seemed to mirror the beacons that the ship stopped at: abandoned. While Harris was happy to avoid conflicts, he wanted a chance to test the sensors on a ship to see if they could work. As the sensors scanned the local area, Harris began to doubt he would ever have a chance to use the new systems in this sector.

"ALERT, UNIDENTIFIED SHIP ORBITING EXIT BEACON." The discovery of the ship made Harris sit up in this chair, and captured his full attention. "Looks like we have company," reported Harris over the intercom.

"Are they REBELS?" Asked Evera.

"Different style of ship, Lieutenant. It's an old decommissioned bomber class ship, the REBELS wouldn't be caught dead in a ship like that." 'So what are they then?" "No idea, Evera. They could be enemies or friends." The other ship by then seemed to noticed the _Good Tidings, _and broke off orbit to intercept the ship. "Looks like we are going to find out," said Harris. "Have the shields on standby, Evera."

"Yes sir!" She replied.

"Gage, I will transfer energy from the med-bay to the engines. That should get the engines at full power."

"Gratitude." Came Gage's robotic voice.

"All right, be alert and be ready," Ordered Harris moving the ship towards the exit beacon of the sector. As the two ships moved closer towards each other, Harris looked at the ship. The ship had basic shields but its weapons consisted of a Hermes missile a pike Beam and a dual laser; a heavily armed ship, despite it being old. Which raise a red flag in Harris mind.

When the ship came into hail range, Harris made the first contact and hailed the ship, saying: "This is Captain Harris Breg of the Federation ship, _Good Tidings._ Identify yourselves." For a brief moment the ship gave no answer.

Harris was about to repeat his identification, but the ship replied to the hail. "Power down your weapons and surrender one of your crew to us. If you do not do that within a minute prepared to be destroyed." Harris exhaled sharply, slavers. They were common in the fringe planets, raiding small settlements and ships, looking for people to sell. Clearly they wanted one of them.

Harris shook his head, he just had a new member of the crew join them, and he was not going to give up one of his crew. Hailing the ship, Harris prematurely answered for his crew. "Not a chance in hell," and Harris powering up the weapons. "Get ready for a fight," said Harris to the other two. "We have slavers, and they are not selling."

"Understood, shield at full power," answered Evera.

"Comprehend. Engines at best performance." Also answered Gage.

"ALERT: INCOMING PROJECTILES." Harris looked at the ship and saw a missile followed by two laser beams. Harris then pulled hard on the ship's steering yoke, causing the _Good Tidings, _to climb up. With the added energy to the boosters, the ship was able to dodge the missile, but not the lasers. The first one hit the shield making the shield overload and fall apart, allowing the second laser to hit the _Good Tidings._ The ship then shook after the laser made contact with the ship, telling Harris the ship had been hit. He glanced over at the overview of the ship, the laser hit one of the empty rooms causing no damage to any of the systems.

Harris sighed relieved, at least their ship was still running at its best performance. "ALERT: ENERGY BEAM PREPARING TO FIRE." Harris attention darted to the other ship and turned the yoke to dodge the beam, if possible. A beam weapon is hard to dodge, and could do a lot of damage. As he turned he saw the beam materialize and leap towards the _Good Tidings._

But it did not touch the ship. Before the beam could reach the ship, the shield was restored and the beam touched the shield, blocking it from the ship. Harris then steadied the ship as the weapons became fully charged. Harris knew that the enemy's weapons where going to be a nightmare if they did not take out the weapon's systems.

Harris then set the ship's weapons to auto fire on the enemy ship's armory. When the missile was ready, it launched towards the ship followed by three lasers from the burst lasers. The missile went straight through the shields and made a direct hit on the ship's weapon's systems. The three lasers followed missile, the first one dissolved the shield allowing the other two lasers to enter past the would be shields. The first one missed the ship, but the second one made contact with the ship and added more damage toe the ships armory. Harris smiled to himself when he saw the beam's glow of energy go dark. A sign that energy had stopped flowing to the weapon.

As the weapon powered down, Harris snuck a look at the console with the enemy ship's stats. With the improvements to the sensors, Harris was able to see the movement of the crew of the slavers. There were three members, two of them were the actual crew, and one was in a sealed room that blocked the sensors for some reason. It must have been specially coated in a sensor blocking material. No doubt it was the room were they placed their captives to avoid lower level sensors from sensing the captives. But they could detect a life signature coming from the room, but as far as the type of the being and the location in the room itself.

Of the two of the crew, one was a human on shields, and a slug on the helm. After the damage was done to the armory, the human abandoned his post and went to the armory trying to repair the weapons. After another five seconds the slaver's ship fired again, this time with only the missile launcher and the lasers. The missile again missed the ship, but one laser hit the _Good Tidings, _in the engine room, making the ship's speed slow.

"Gage, damage report!" Inquired Harris.

"Damage minimal. Repairs need under three minutes." Replied the Engi.

"Very well," replied Harris, leaving the Engi to his work. While the ship was slower, it still was going at a decent pace thanks the presence of an engineer in the engine room. When the _Good Tidings _weapons were recharged they fired automatically, their target the ship's armory. The second missile missed, flying off into space never to be seen again, while the three laser burst went straight to their target, the first one like before dissolved the shield, and the two after the first hit the armory, and caused a small explosion causing a fire to break out in the armory.

Harris then looked back at the console and noticed the fire. The human was currently fighting off the fire that had ignited in the room. Looking at all the ship's weapon's he noticed the duel lasers were powered down, and the only thing that remained powered was the missile launcher. Only the missiles would remain a threat from this ship.

As the time passed, Harris mentally braced himself to dodge another missile. But it never came. Confused, Harris looked at the missile launcher on the slaver ship. It was loaded, but nothing was coming out. Harris then realized what it meant; the slavers were out of missiles. The slavers could not fire back for now, they were sitting ducks for the _Good Tidings. _

As the _Good Tidings_ prepared to fire again, the slaver ship urgently hailed them saying: "Enough! Please, we have had enough!"

Harris was not moved by the slavers' pleads. He de activated the auto firing to reply: "Why should we not blow your ship up to the stars?"

For a pause, the slavers gave no answer. Harris slowly guided his hand over the FIRE button on the console. "We—" replied the slavers stopping Harris's hand, "We will give you our slave in exchange for our lives."

"What?"

"If you let us go, we will give your our slave and never bother you again."

Harris considered the proposal, an extra crew member to their ship. It was very tempting.

* * *

"I can't believe you agreed!" Exclaimed Lt. Evera, rubbing her head.

"We have a chance to increase our crew, Lieutenant."

"We are working with slavers! We need to arrest them and take their ship to custody."

"Under whose authority? The failing Federation or our own? We have no bases to send them for to trial out here. We are lucky they are giving us their slave. And not only that we get to free a would be slave. Isn't that enough?"

Evera sighed angrily, "I guess so sir."

"Incoming shuttle, Captain." Came Gage's voice from the bridge. Harris order Gage to pilot the ship and to keep the guns pointed on the slaver ship, as one of the crew would bring the slave over to the _Good Tidings _in a shuttle. Harris and Evera were waiting in a room outside the airlock with their pistols out and ready incase it got ugly.

Harris heard the shuttle lock its docking passage to the ship, and the outer airlock open. The slaver and the slave had arrived.

"What sort of condition would the slave be in?" Asked Evera.

"Who knows," shrugged Harris. "If I had a guess they will be undernourished and rather weak."

"Captain," came Gage's voice over the intercom. "Two personnel clear. Ambush unlikely."

"Thanks Gage, keep watch on that ship," replied Harris. He pressed the unlock for the door and the two door panels swooshed open. The first person to come out of the hatch was a human, his face covered in scars and tattoos, and not happy. Harris pegged him as the human in the armory.

The human then snapped having the slave come out of airlock. From the air lock their came a loud and gravely thump, followed by a large grey and black rock arm, with the rest of the rockman ducking his head to fit into the doorway. As he step forward Harris and Evera were speechless, it was a large contrast from the slaver. The rock man was almost too tall for the ship, his head was a few inches away from the ceiling. He had bright red eyes, but they were not evil, rather solemn. The rockman's skin was composed of black and dark grey stones. The Rockmen's biology were a mystery to the Federation, and most of the other races. But they were known for their "solid" behavior, they were simple battle loving people who were set in their ways.

On this one's neck and wrists was some sort of yellow collars that seems to be charge with an electoral current. No doubt a from of behavior control on the rockman for the slavers.

"Or he could be a giant rock creature," whispered Harris to Evera.

"This is the slave," said the human.

"I see," said Harris. "What is that around his neck?"

"A slave collar. We put it on our slaves to keep them under control."

"I want it off," said Harris.

"What?" Replied the slaver. The rockman looked at Harris confused.

"Uh, sir? Wouldn't be wise to keep that collar on, just in case he gets out of hand…" whispered Evera.

Harris just ignored the two of them and said again, "I want the collar off of him." He then looked at the slaver, "Unless you have forgotten I have your ship in my crosshairs." The slaver just stared at Harris angrily. Giving in to his request, the slaver pulled out a key, and one by one unlocked the collars that were around the rockman's wrists and neck. When the slaver was done, Harris said, "Now I suggest you leave for your ship. Unless you want this rockman to reply his former masters."

With the threat enough to scare the man, the slaver disappeared into the airlock and into his shuttle. When he was gone, the rockman stared at Harris, unsure of what to think.

Harris stepped forward, "I am captain Harris Berg. This is my ship the _Good Tidings._ Are you alright?" The rockman was slow to answer, as if he did not trust Harris yet. But eventually the rockman nodded slowly: "yes." "What is your name?"

"Groc," came a low gravely voice from the creature. "And I guess I have you to thank I am not in a slave market right now being sold to the highest bidder." Harris was surprised. Rockmen usually had simple English, but this one had a better grasp of the language than others.

"You speak English rather well," noticed Harris.

"I was on a Federation fringe colony for most of my life, before I taken for a slave."

"I see," said Harris. "Well if it is alright with you, I would like to hire you for one of my crew."

"Do I have a choice in this decision?" Asked Groc.

Harris nodded, "You do now. I won't force you to work for us, but it might be awhile before we find a station to drop you off on. It could get boring."

"Is that why your freed me?" Asked the rockman rubbing his wrists.

"What better way to earn your trust?" Smiled Harris.

The rockman cracked a grin. "Well it worked. I'll join you Harris."

"Good," smiled Harris. He then turned to Lt. Evera, "This is my second in command, Evera. She can show you to your quarters and later to the armory. We'll have you man the armory, if that is ok."

"That is fine," said Groc. And with that the Lieutenant and the rockman walked into the ship, and towards the crew's quarters.

Harris went in the opposite direction, towards the bridge, to take over for Gage. Within a couple of days, the once undermanned to having almost a full crew: one a master mechanic and another immune to fire. Things were looking up for the little ship and it's mission.

* * *

End Notes

Gage's and Groc's names

I was a bit unoriginal with the names, mostly due to laziness. I think they fit for the characters.

Gage's speech

I went back and played several round of FTL trying to get the text right. I hope I did, let me know if it works.

Cheers

Indogma


	5. The Pirate Sector

**FTL: Faster Then Light**

**Amongst the Stars **

**A FanFict based off of the Indy game: FTL**

**By Indogma. **

**Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan based story. The contents of the story are owned by Subset Games. In no way do the views shown reflect the views of Subset Games. Please support the official release. **

After rescuing a giant from a group of slavers after just recruiting a stranded Engi from a deserted planet, the _Good Tidings _is now fully manned. But as they continue deeper into the pirate sector they find that enemies are plenty in this part of space.

-The Pirate Sector-

Captain Harris Breg sighed loudly had he leaned back into his pilot's chair aboard the ship. For the past two hours he and the rest of his crew had been busy with repairs on the little kestrel ship after another brief fight with a pirate ship. It had been the pattern ever since they added to there crew a few days ago. The rock man, Groc had been a much-needed hand in these recent days.

Stronger then any human, he was able to help move the missile and other weapons around as if they were toys; making him the perfect choice for gunner. Groc had set up his quarters in the cargo bay, due to the other quarter being too cramped for his massive body. Overall it seemed he had settled into the ship nicely.

And then there was Gage, the Engi. While completely detached from emotion, he was a genius when it came to anything electronics related, making the job of repairing the ship that much more easier. And instead of taking any quarters, the Engi had requested to be given a certain corner of the engine room right next to an outlet when he powered down. Harris agreed at those had been the Engi's quarters ever since.

The power doors behind him opened and Evera walked in a gave a lazy salute, "Just finished the last of the repairs, Harris." She then rubbed the top of her shoulder and said, "I'll be glad if I never have to go into one of those crammed air ducts again."

Harris smiled, "It needed to be done, if not we would always be losing air and over working the Oxygen restorers."

"I guess," she sighed. "I just wish these damn pirates would stop attacking us."

Harris nodded. Every new point on the sector had provided them with a different fight, making there trip through the sector all the more tiresome. The repairs that the ship had received in Tiny's station had now disappeared it seemed and the ship was now back down to about a third hull integrity.

Now the ship was in the pirate home world sector, due to the fact it was the only option availed to jump to. Opening the star map, he looked at the possible jumps that he could steer the ship towards. There was the longer route they could take, it was about five jumps away, assuming all of the jumps would work, and it would have them avoid the pirate base/home world of Catluss. And then there was the other route, only three jumps, the final jump was directly to the planet of Catluss.

Harris sighed and rubbed his chin, now covered in small stubbles black and white hairs. He had not shaved since he had gotten the _Good Tidings,_ which was a habit of some space captains who called it a "service beard". Breaking away from his thoughts, he looked and saw Evera staring intently at he star map as well. "Have you thought of our destination?" She asked.

Harris shrugged, "I have…" he rose from his chair and begun to pace, "But I cannot make up my mind." He looked at her, "Could I ask for your opinion." She nodded firmly, and Harris begun: "Currently there are two paths we could go." He then pointed to the star map, his finger tracing the different paths, "First we could head along these few planets, avoiding the pirates at there home. It would mean we would have more chances to run into fights." He then glanced at the Lieutenant who was nodding her head. "Or we could take the quicker way, through the planet of Catluss, the pirates home world." He looked and asked, "Well, Lieutenant? What do you think?"

Evera stepped forward and looked at the map in closer detail. "I think sir, we should take the long route around the pirate's homebase…" she said tracing the path with her finger too. "It would be safer. Maybe…"

"Are you sure about that?"

She nodded, "It seems like the obvious thing to do… and it is standard Federation tactics."

Harris sighed, and looked out into space. For a moment he said nothing to the other officer as he dwelled on her suggestion. "I am afraid the pirates might think the same thing, Evera…"

"What do you mean sir," she asked stepping forward.

"You said it yourself, "It seems like the obvious thing to do"… well if it so obvious I am certain the pirates will think the same." He then turned swiftly and said, "You see my worry?"

"I-I guess so sir, but thinking the pirates will try to think like us is a far shot…"

"Perhaps, but remember they are hunting **us,** not the other way around. If you were hunting a pirate wouldn't you at least try to think like them?" Evera nodded. "That means they would most likely place themselves in the most likely routes to block our escape."

"So where dose that leave us?"

"With one option it seems," he tapped on Catluss's symbol on the map. "To go were they least suspect it, into Catluss itself."

He turned to look at his Lieutenant and saw the worry on her face. "Heading straight into the heart of the beast sir, it will be dangerous."

He nodded, "Yes, that is why I wanted to share my thoughts with you before we decided. Just so you know what is at stake here. But, if I am right, we will not have much of a fight along the way, we could get a few jumps ahead of the REBELS and we might be able to kill a pirate lord and hopefully bring some stablitly to the local systems, REBELS or no REBELS. If I am wrong, we are probably dead, but it seems that is bound to be our fate even if we stay here."

"I know that," she sighed. "And it is your decision in the end, captain."

Harris sighed, "Still think it is a bad idea?"

She shrugged, "it is a better idea then sitting around here and waiting for the answer to come to us, sir."

Harris grinned and looked at the Lieutenant, she had changed. She was less quick with her questions, and less reluctant to use the Federation hand book of space conduct to find an answer. She now realized different situations needed different answers, often not found in a book. A lesson she had learned in a matter of weeks, while for other officers it took years. "You're absolutely right."

Briskly he walked to the pilot's seat and grabbed the ship's yoke, "You better get to your station," Harris said calmly, "We jump as soon as the ship is ready." Evera gave a quick salute and left Harris alone to position the ship towards the first planet that lead them to the pirate home world.

As the _Good Tidings _made its way deeper into the hostile pirate sector, Harris was cautious with every jump, knowing that every star brought them closer to the pirate base. But with every jump it seemed that Harris prediction was correct for there was not a ship to be seen on any of the jumps before Catluss. But instead of detracting from the tension, it only seemed to add to it.

Now the ship was ready to make the final jump, the jump to Catluss. Once past that, they were free of the fear from pirate attacks and this sector, but they had to get past it first. Before jumping, Harris checked with the ship's crew over the intercom, making sure all were ready. Groc gave a gruff, "Yep," and Gage gave his robotic, "Affirmative." And that was followed by Evera saying a, eager, "Aye, aye captain." The crew where ready, that is all Harris could ask for. Sealing their fates, he pushed forward and jumped the ship towards Catluss.

* * *

The planet was a small backwater planet that seemed to be the worst place for anyone to live in. It had almost little to no resources or water supplies, and the planet blanketed its lower elevations with a sort of brown smog that was poisonous to whom ever breathed it long enough. The only parts of the planet that were spared from the gas, where the high mountain tops that clustered the planet, barely making it a inhabitable place for anyone but the brave or stupid; these pirates where both of these and desperate. Since the Federation stared colonizing the fringe planets, they had claimed and protected them with some outdated ships making them all the hard to raid and take over for the pirates. Which left them this planet.

When Harris set his eyes on the planet, he thought he had made a mistake at first, seeing the brown smog paint the planet an ugly brown, but after rechecking the star map, he knew he was at the right planet. Then the scanners lit up as the long ranged scanners detected a ship orbiting the planet. A single ship.

"Just one?" said Harris aloud. He smiled, "I guess I was right: the pirates are out searching for us." He then looked at the ship more intently, "Well all but this one…"

"ALERT: UNIDENTIFIED SHIP MAKING COURSE FOR INTERCEPT"

"All hands," commanded Harris to the ship's crew, "Prepare to an attack!"

As soon as he said that, the ship's weapon turned online and began to charge and the shield was now up. Harris then took a peek at the ship's status, after picking up Groc and the Engi, Gage. Harris had added some improvements to the ship. One of the improvements was the addition of blast doors to the ship. In one of the fights with a pirate, they had been boarded once by a pair of pirates. While onboard they did some damage to the ship before they could be dealt with. Harris swore after that he would not let that happen again, and the blast doors where a way of showing he meant it. Another improvement from all the scrap they acquired with the pirate fights was improving the ship's power and shield. With the more power they could afford to keep the Med bay running while power the engines fully, and with the added protection from additional layering of the shield they could block most lasers that were aimed at them.

As the two ships closed in to fight each other, Harris turned on the ship scanners and scanned the inside of the ship. His heart sank when he noticed that the ship had a short ranged teleporter in it. Again, Harris turned on the intercom and spoke to the crew, "Be ready for a boarding action. Groc, Evera be ready to leave your station and head off these boarders." Since they had been boarded once before, Harris was able to discern who was the preferred "defender" of the ship. Presently Groc was the best suited for such a task, with one flinch of his fingers, he could crush a man's head in his hand and he could throw any item that was not directly attached to the ship in like it weighed nothing at all. In contrast, Gage was the poorest fighter of the ship. Being made of metal seemed to place him more at a disadvantage then one would have thought, and his movements in a fight were slow and not very committing.

With that in mind, Harris assigned Evera, and Groc to deal with incoming boarders when they appeared, which looked really probable now. As the distance between the two ships closed, they arrived in hailing distance and teleportation distance.

"INCOMING HAIL."

"Hold it, right there!" Came a gruff mean voice from the ship. "Turn off ya weapons and prepare to be boarded. Yer in our neck of the woods now…"

"This is Captain Harris Breg of the Federation ship, _Good Tidings._ And I demand—"

"Ya **demand?** Ha, listen 'ere. We run this planet, and we are in charge around 'ere. So ya better stut yer demands. Now turn off yer engines or we'll blast ya!"

"I'd like to see your one ship do that." Taunted Harris angrily.

"Heh, ya asked for it!" And with that, the pirate closed the hail.

Harris swun his head quickly as he looked at the ship's chart as the ship AI said: "ALERT, UNIDENIFIED PERSONAL ABOARD THE SHIP." The pirates where already onboard.

"Groc, Evera! A pair of pirates have teleported in the cargo room between the armory and the shield room! Deal with them!"

"Aye aye sir!" Evera replied over the intercom. Harris then turned to focus on the pirate ship. He trusted those two to do there job, now he needed to do his.

* * *

Lt. Evera, moved towards the door which lead to the room where the pirates were supposed to be. Holding a laser gun in her hands, he felt the cold metal turn hot in her grip. It was an unnerving feeling, dealing with boarders. Sighing deeply, she leaned against the frame of the door, and pressed the button to open the door. Letting it open, she slowly leaned in to peer into the room, only to be greeted by a pair laser beams aimed around her head.

Ducking behind the frame, she panted heavily. "At least they are human," she thought. The other time they had been boarded, the party had a mantis with them. It was the first time she had ever seen one of those creatures, and it was one she would not likely forget. They had bright red eyes that did not seem to focus on anything, making them all the more scary. The mantis in the boarding, had cornered Evera and was a few steps away from finishing her off, but then Groc had stepped in; literally. With one giant step, he brought his foot down on the bug, killing it like it was a regular bug. Although she survived, she had become terrified at the prospect of fighting another mantis on day. But at least it was not today.

Leaning her gun out, she fired several rounds into the room, not aiming anything but just fire back to keep the other pirates under fire. Glancing out again, she saw on of the pirates had taken cover behind a create right by the door, and was presently attempting to hack his way through the door.

Evera swore aloud, and fired two more lasers into the room before ducking back behind the door. "Groc, those pirates are trying to hacking into the Armory!"

"I know!" Came the Rockman's reply. "I am ready for them. Just keep them busy!"

The ship shook from a hit, and Evera stumbled slightly to keep her footing, "A-Alright." And she continued to fire into the room blindly.

After a few seconds, the two pirates were able to hack the control panel allowing them to open the door. Smiling at each other, they opened the door; only to find the imposing Groc on the other side of it. Before they could act, the rock man swung his fist at the one who had hacked the door open. The blow landed direcly on the man's chest and caused him to go flying into the air and to the rooms ceiling, before falling into the middle of the room.

With the other man still in shock, Evera saw her chance, turning away from the doorway, she aimed her pistol at the man and fired. The laser hit the pirate in the should and he dropped his laser pistol in pain before being finished off by Groc's fist making contact on his face.

The man in the middle was in pain, but still conscious. Gasping in pain, he reached for his retreater, (a device used to signal the other ship to teleport him back,) and pressed the button. Within seconds the two of them had vanished with a quick flash, and just like that the ship was clear of pirates.

"Groc, Evera report!" Came Harris voice from the intercom.

"All boarders, repelled Captian…" panted Evera.

"Good, now get back to your stations! We are not done yet!"

* * *

Harris gripped the yoke of the ship and made it list towards the right, as he tried to dodge an incoming missile form the other ship. The ship they had been fighting was better equipped then most of the other pirate ships. The pirate ship was a old slug bomber called, _Lady Luck,_ who had a pair of Burst Lasers and a Hemes missile launcher. Making it slightly more powerful then the _Good Tidings. _But what it made up for in weapons it lacked in shields. The ship only had one layer of shields total.

As the ship veered right the missile flew past the ship, barely passing the left engine. After the threat of the missile passed, Harris corrected the ship's course, and made the ship level again with the other ship.

As the ship became level, Harris returned fire with a volley of lasers and a missile. The missile hit the shield room of the ship, but only one of the laser hit close to the ship, and the lone energy laser fizzled as it touched the shield. Not the counter attack Harris was hoping for.

Shaking his head, the ship suddenly lurched again as another round of lasers hit the hull.

"ALERT: HULL INTEGRITY LESS THEN 15%."

"Dammit," Harris swore. The ship could not take much more of this. Glancing over at the ship chart he saw one of the lasers at hit the oxygen room and had damaged the O2 restorer. Harris quickly got on the communicator, "Gage!"

"Inquisitive. Yes captain?"

"Get off the engines and head to the O2 room and repair whatever needs to be fix!"

"Acknowledged." Replied Gage as he left his post to fix the oxygen restorer.

For the next few minutes, the ships continued to fire on each other; neither one landing a great hit on the other. While the pirate ship was better equipped then the _Good Tidings_, it lacked hull strength. In the same about of time it took the ship to lower the _Good Tidings'_ hull down to 10%, the other ship was now down to about 5% of its starting health. But Harris knew anyone could win this fight.

Then Harris noticed something, as he waited for the next folly to come, the missile launcher showed green as if it was ready to launch, it had been that way for a while know. But nothing happened. Harris smiled, they were out of missiles.

Taking the chance, Harris gunned the ship forward towards _Lady Luck_ just ass the ship was firing its pair of lasers at the ship, but completely missing as the _Good Tidings _changed her tack and headed straight for the pirate vessel.

As the ships grew closer together, both the missile and the lasers of the _Good Tidings_ were ready to fire, but Harris was holding his fire. He knew he needed to wait for the right moment and one of his hands hovered over the fire button while the other clenched the yoke tightly.

"Not yet, not yet." He whispered impatiently. He needed the other ship to move if his plan was to work. A second later, his charge worked and the pirate ship darted down to move under the Federation ship. Harris then carried out his plan: he fired the missile at the pirate's shield room and followed it by a barrage of lasers at the pirate's engines. If the plan worked, the pirates would not have time to put on there reverse thrusters and could not slow down as they floated in space with no control over there direction.

Watching the entire projectiles hit their targets Harris clenched his fist and cheered under his breath, "Yes!" He knew at this range it was almost impossible to miss, but it still was a happy moment for him. Quickly he grabbed the yoke with two hands and pulled it up and slowly turned the ship around as he lined the ship up for the kill.

"ALERT: INCOMING HAIL FORM _LADY LUCK."_

But Harris ignored the hail, he knew from experience pirates sometimes would hail the other ship when they were losing to try and recover their systems before they turned and attacked again. Harris was taking no such risk.

"Groc, no need to power up the missile launcher." Said Harris over the intercom. "We can finish him off with just one blast from our lasers. And I doubt he will have powered up his engines by then to dodge."

"Got it," Groc replied.

Slowly the ship waited for its lasers to charge, as the pirate ship continued its free-floating tract. Again the pirates tried to hail Harris, but the alert was soon drowned out by another; "LASERS FULLY CHARGED."

Without hesitation, Harris pushed the button. All three lasers hit the ship, but it seemed the last one was the last one the ship could take. All at once the ship begun to break apart, slowly at first with long small cracks that slowly grew into longer wider gaps that seemed to shred the ship apart into large and small fragments.

Harris just watched coldly, showing no remorse for the crew of that ship. He believed that they would have had no objections doing the same to them; which made it easier for him to have little feeling for the pirates.

Soon the entire ship was in pieces and unrecognizable from its original shape, sealing the _Good Tidings_ victory. Harris sighed relieved, another close fight for them. Lazily he looked over at the chart. The door control room as well as the sensor room had been damaged in the fight and there was a hull breach in one of the unused rooms but other then that no major damage.

"Evera," he said calmly, "I'm giving you the helm. Take us out of this place and head for the exit beacon. I'll work with Grog and Gage to repair what damage we took."

"Yes, sir." She replied flatly.

After the exchange of orders, Harris leaned into the chair again, and relaxed. They had survived another fight. Hopefully there luck would hold out for the rest of the trip. For a moment he just sat there, lost in thought but not focusing on anything, a dazed look in his eyes. The spell broke when Evera opened the door to the pilot cabin, and reality returned to the captain as he got up to go to work.

Soon the _Good Tidings_ was fully repaired and prepared for the next sector, not knowing what it would bring for any of them.

-End Notes-

Sorry for the wait. This would be where I would say a excuse as to why the story was delayed, but honestly I have nothing to blame but my own procrastination… oh well. Well that and a novel I am working on…

Cheers!

Indogma


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